Compact Development and Preference Heterogeneity in Residential Location Choice Behavior: A Latent Class Analysis
Despite the known benefits of compact development—such as reduced vehicle miles traveled, increased transit use, and healthy outcomes—successful transportation and land use planning efforts require accurately gauging the public demand for these alternative development forms. Drawing upon a discrete choice experiment in the Wasatch Front, the largest metropolitan region in the state of Utah, this paper uses a market segmentation approach to identify preference heterogeneity in residents’ location choices toward compact, walkable, and transit-friendly neighborhoods. Results derived from a latent class analysis suggest that strong preferences for compact development are more likely to occur among families with less school-age children, low-income and renter-occupied households, as well as those with greater focus on healthy lifestyle. By comparing respondents’ preferences to their actual residential locations and travel patterns in two contrasting sub-regions, the authors also address the complex relationships between environment, preferences, residential locations, and travel behavior. The results imply that taking into account preference heterogeneity and a better understanding of people’s transportation-land use preferences can help transport planners fulfill the potential of compact development and contribute to a sustainable future.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD30 Transportation and Land Development.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
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Authors:
- Liao, Haifeng (Felix)
- Farber, Steven
- Ewing, Reid
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC
- Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
- Date: 2014
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 20p
- Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Consumer preferences; Land use planning; Market segmented groups; Residential location; Sustainable development; Travel behavior
- Uncontrolled Terms: Choices; Discrete choice analysis
- Geographic Terms: Wasatch Front (Utah)
- Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01514293
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 14-0602
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 12 2014 12:32PM